Marcus Schneider 2023年10月11日
On the brink of a major regional war Hamas’ violent
attack has taken Israel by surprise. And it has raised
concerns about the potential for an unprecedented
escalation in the Middle East
Just when no one expected it anymore, Hamas catapulted the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
back into the centre of world attention in the most brutal way possible. While the logic of
confrontation was beginning to prevail globally, the notoriously unstable Middle East, of all
places, recently developed into an oasis of major diplomatic offensives. But all that is over
now. In the end, the great fraternisation, the rapprochements and normalisations
everywhere, turned out to be just a ‘calm before the storm’. Beyond the honeymoon enjoyed
by the rulers, hardly anything has been resolved in the Middle East. There is a certain irony
in the fact that the Middle East conflict, this primal conflict in the region that has been so
marginalised in recent times, has destroyed the superficial harmony.
The fog of the unfolding events has not yet completely lifted. But one thing already seems
clear: on 7 October, Israel experienced a disaster that can be compared to Pearl Harbor or
9/11, not only in its strategic but also psychological consequences. Even without using the
now hackneyed term ‘Zeitenwende’, it is clear that nothing will ever be the same again.
A large-scale attack with far-reaching implications
Almost 50 years to the day after the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War, Israel was once again
hit hard by a surprise attack. But this time, instead of the Egyptian and Syrian armies, it was
the radical Islamist Hamas, the de facto ruler of the sealed-off Gaza Strip and classified as a
